Pär Stenbäck was a member of Parliament for 15 years and served as Minister for Education and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland. He left politics in 1985 to become Secretary General of the Finnish Red Cross, moving to Geneva as Secretary General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. After that, he took up the post as Secretary General of the Nordic Council of Ministers in Copenhagen until 1997. 

After that he has been a civil society actor in many international and national organisations. He is a founding member of the International Youth Foundation, International Crisis Group, European Cultural Parliament (Chair) and the Finnish Children and Youth Foundation. Today, he works with the Brazzaville Foundation and chairs the New Foreign Policy Society of Finland since 2017.

He has published five books, the latest in 2019 about the future of democracy (in Finnish and Swedish). He has been bestowed with the honorary title “Minister” in 1999 by President Martti Ahtisaari, the Nobel Peace Prize recipient.